I'm imperfect

We were just hanging around the Ipoh town before going back to our island, the rain started to drip-drop after we had our hi-tea at Burps & Giggles. Just noticed that Plan B is opened somewhere near to the cafe, right in the mid of Ipoh town, promised myself that I would want to visit Plan B if I were given the chance. I did in fact, after few months from this road trip with my family. Am going to post about that too, together with my experience in Lost World of Tambun, Ipoh. Most of you might know about it through my Instagram, if you are not and feel to know more about me, you can just follow my Instagram (@stimfishchong) although I'm not updated it frequently. Sometimes I just feel not to update so much in social media laugh. 

I love this quote taken up by Plan B:

"It's perfect to be imperfect, because perfection is made up of many imperfections put together that makes it perfect."

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I'm imperfect; I'll improve but times needed.

Thean Chun Coffee Shop (天津茶室) . Ipoh

Whenever I was in Ipoh, I only have chicken rice for my lunch or dinner, nothing else. It was great that my sister suggested that we can try something else in Ipoh and we were in Thean Chun Coffee Shop for their famous Chicken Kuey Teow Soup (Kai See Hor Fun in Cantonese). People queuing outsides the coffee shop to look for their seats, I nearly had the 'let's go somewhere else for lunch' thought when I saw this much of people waiting for their food. My sister insisted to lunch in the coffee shop, and the owner said we can just have our seats next to the coffee shop (other coffee shop) and he can bring the food to us if it's ready. 

Felt lucky that we had some soy bean curd earlier before the lunch at Funny Mountain, the chicken kuey teow soup take ages to reach us. While waiting for that, we actually ordered some food which is quite famous in the coffee shop to share around. 

This is how the little coffee shop looks like, see the crowds outside the coffee shop? Salute. Other than the chicken kuey teow soup, you can also see long queue on their chee cheong fun, caramel custard and satay stall; we ordered some to try except the caramel custard. This round, I admit that I'm a fail blogger for not remember the price for the food that we ordered. Hehe, so just enjoy the food photos. 

Here comes the Ipoh style Chee Cheong Fun which topped with dash of sesame seeds, crispy fried shallots and served together with pickled chilies which is hardly found in Penang. Some of you might don't like the taste of pickled chilies but as for me, I find it quite good to enhance the taste of the food and it's not spicy at all. We ordered the chee cheong fun with shrimp paste, the taste isn't too strong as the shallot oil a little bit cover the shrimp paste here, which is quite up to my liking! 

I read through some blogs before I continue this post and found out that the chee cheong fun and the pork satay are actually from Kong Heng Coffee Shop, most of the stalls sharing the same alley between Thean Chun and Kong Heng Coffee Shop. Why bother, as long as we get to eat the food right? Next up is the pork satay, I think it's quite hard to find pork satay in Penang so we were quite enjoy the pork satay over here. The satay is good with minimal fatty cuts of meat, it's even heavenly when we dipped the satay into the peanut sauce. 

Finally, the chicken kuey teow soup (kai see hor fun) that we waited for almost 1 hour. Once you order the chicken kuey teow soup, a number plate was given by the stall owners, they will serve your order according to the number plate, this is quite good as no one is able to cut queue. We felt quite excited when we saw the diners with number before us were served, we knew next will be us lol. The portion for this is rather small, we finished it within 3-4 minutes, not really fulfilled our empty stomach if we were not order other dishes. The taste is good but I feel it's quite similar with the Penang's prawn mee, nonetheless the kuey teow (hor fun) is super smooth! 

When we finished our lunch, I saw this little mural opposite of Thean Chun Coffee Shop, which is draw by Ernest Zacharevic, it looks like real kopi-o hanging on the metal door. 

Location

73, Jalan Bandar Timah, 30000 Ipoh, Perak.

Business Hours

9.30am untill late lunch (Daily), Closed on Thursday

Contact Number

05-255 3076

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To be or not to be.

The famous Soy Bean Milk & Tau Fu Fah @ Funny Mountain (奇峰) . Ipoh

Not going to post about the caves visiting we did in Ipoh, one because I don't think most of you are interest with that, second I once posted about it (but not all lol). We also visited Burps & Giggles cafe before headed back to Penang, not going to post about it either as I posted about it too, you can read the post here, my laziness is overload this week. Forgive me on this, facing the laptop screen too much just make me feel like I didn't really enjoy my weekend. Travel to Ipoh is something like you travel to Penang, other than those attraction places, the only thing you can do in the state is EAT, don't read my blog posts if you are hungry. Laugh. 

If you are in Ipoh but never try the soy bean milk and tau fu fah (soy bean curd) from Funny Mountain (奇峰), I think you defeat the purpose of going to Ipoh. The shop was renovated few years back, now they have the proper signboard compare to last time; I discern their changes from years to years. The thing that never change is their recipe and the huge crowd of customers. 

Customers need to queue up to order their soy bean milk or tau fu fah, don't worry with the long queue, their serving is quite fast and you do not need to wait for long. Something you will never find elsewhere is their drive-through service, brilliant idea to have this service as sometime it is quite hard to look for a parking during peak hours. 

The operating hour is starting from 10.30am onward until their beverages and tau fu fah are sold out, so please be there earlier if you don't want to be disappointed. Look at the tau fu fah container, it was almost empty when we were there around 12pm in the noon. Funny Mountain is also deemed as the Best In The World by 8TV, good job! 

Look at the happy faces when they get to eat their tau fu fah which cost RM1 per bowl, not expensive but the portion is slightly small tho. You can order extra bowl of tau fu fah if you don't have enough. Normally I prefer black sugar when I order tau fu fah but here they only have white sugar, it doesn't affect the taste btw. My parents claimed that the milk taste is overpower the taste of the soy bean (they prefer the one they have in Penang), nonetheless the tau fu fah is super smooth. 

Location

49, Jalan Theatre, 30300 Ipoh, Perak.

Business Hours

10.30am till finish (Daily)

Contact Number

012-516 1607

E-mail

funnymountain@hotmail.com

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Rain, keep it small.

Brekkie at Foh San . Ipoh

On the month of May, I had a road trip with my family to Ipoh and I finally make up my mind to post about it now, mm-hmm hope you don't mind the super duper backdated post. Before I start the post, I would just mention something outlying from this post. You may notice that I included watermark again in my photos from this post onward, I did have watermark once but I kind of stop included it on my photos thinking that it a little bit spoil the art of my photo. Laugh. Then, things just happened. I'm sure you got to read some commercial website publish and introduce new cafes in Penang or any other related post, I found out that some of my photos are on their post yet they did not credit those photos to my blog. Of course I don't mind seeing my photos been shared in commercial website, but at least they should just credit mention us (I'm not the only one facing this kind of problem I think). Thanks to my friends who tagged me on their post and let me know that my photos being used without credit, so I'm putting in the watermark to prevent this from happening again. Nah, it will happen again but at least readers with eyes will see the watermark and know the source of the photos. Okay, I'm done with this topic.

It was my sister's holiday if not mistaken, then we family thought to have a road trip to somewhere near to our island, Ipoh is definitely a good choice for us who stay in Penang as the time consume for go and fro is only around 3 hours. We departed around six in the morning as my-everything-also-know-sister said we must reach Foh San restaurant before 8am if we want to get a seat for breakfast.

It was my first time to Foh San Dim Sum Restaurant even-tho I went to Ipoh for times, but I never went there for dim sum; my previous trip to Ipoh was to had my breakfast at Sin Yin Loong for their hawker style brekkie before head up to Cameron Highlands. I knew that there are plenty of famous dim sum restaurants in Ipoh which offer cheaper price than Foh San but still I would want to give Foh San a try and my parents seems to prefer Foh San as well. 

My first impression on Foh San restaurant was: walao, how can a dim sum restaurant be so huge and grand that make it a little bit looks like a 5 star hotel. We reached there according to our schedule (8am), we already had hard time to look for a parking and the traffic in front of the restaurant was quite terrible. Foh San even provide a Take Away section next to their main entrance, quite convenient to those people who are in rush. 

We couldn't get a seat at their ground floor or I should say my sister totally ignore all the seats at the ground floor and straight went to 1st floor to look for seats. Lucky us to get a empty seats, sorry to those people who walked behind us, we got the seats first lol. 

Sat and waited for awhile, then the waiter (or waitress) will approach you, just name your preferable tea and they will serve you the tea and this paper-card. It is kind of a self-service system in Foh San, so you will need to bring this paper-card when you go pick your favorite dim sums; no queue system at their dim sum section but we kind of practiced it during our visit and people behind us also paiseh to cut queue. In case you want to know, we ordered 菊潽 (Pu Er and Chrysanthemum) for our tea.

Looking at the photos make me drool, seriously I missed the dim sum there, some of them are heavenly good! We wanted to try all their dim sums but we don't have such a big stomach to put them in. I'll not list down what I had during my visit, too much to list, if you want to know how tasty they are, pay a visit to Foh San yourselves. They do offer some desserts, but personally I don't really like the Golden Mango Sago as it is way too sweet but I still saw people queuing for this.

One of my favorite goes to their 金沙包 (Golden Sand Pau), I hardly find a dim sum restaurant selling this at my place, even if they do, the taste is just so-so. This one is superb, I like it and it remain warm even I put there for 5 minutes. Drooling again. We spent around RM107 for our breakfast, if you were ask me is it worth to spend this much for breakfast, I'll definitely say OF COURSE, they worth the price and I'll definitely go back again to have their dim sum. 

Location

51, Jalan Leong Sin Nam, 30300 Ipoh, Perak.

Business Hours

6.30am - 2.30pm (Daily); Closed on Tuesday

Contact Number

05-254 0308

Website

fohsan.com.my

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Hey Sunday, don't run away from me please.

Wheeler's Coffee, Love Lane

It's just another backdated post, I don't really explore new cafes nowadays as the killing weather stop me from going out from my house. I still go out before the sun popping out and after it going down, and I mostly re-visit old cafes instead of new one as I don't have much energy to wait and look for a seat in new cafe; people tend to love the new and loathe the old. I'll just skip those grandmother's stories and start with this post.

Finally paid Wheeler's Coffee a visit, parking surely a problem whenever you come to Love Lane, if you are lucky enough, you might get the VIP parking lot right in front of the cafe. The cafe serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, other than that they do rent their bicycles which hanging outside the cafe. Rent and ride a bicycle in Georgetown area is a trend now. 

Countless of bicycles are used to decorate the cafe, even the murals are with bicycle drawing as well. Maybe the cafe is still new, they have limited choices on the food menu but all their price are surprisingly affordable. During the day we went, at first we wanted to sit upstairs but the staff said they do have seats on the ground floor, if all tables are occupied on the ground floor, they will only open the first floor for seating. Don't really like this as I feel I have the right to choose where to sit in the cafe, don't you think so? Or maybe they just lack of staffs to look after the first floor, so they prefer us to occupy the ground floor first. Hmm....

Frappe Green Tea . RM12.90 | Yogurt Smoothie Mango . RM12.90

Iced Mocha . RM11.90 | Latte . RM9.90

I didn't try their coffee but my friend who is quite typical with coffee said that their coffee is good, and they are willing to come back this cafe for more coffee. I had their yogurt smoothie mango, it is really good to have cold beverages during hot noon, other than that I do not find any special on the smoothie, most of them taste the same. I tried to sip on the frappe green tea, I nearly cough to death on my first sip as the frappe green tea is quite powdery and tickling my throat. After I used to it, then no more the tickling feel on my throat, it would be better if they make the frappe green tea not so powdery. 

Aglio Olio | RM11.90

Wanted to order their seafood carbonara, but the staff said it was out of stock so we ordered this instead. Lucky us to have this dish, as this is the tastiest dish we had in the cafe, it will be better if they make this portion bigger, we actually finished this dish like few mouths only. Normally, you can only get plain spaghetti whenever you order aglio olio, but here they do cooked the spaghetti together with some sliced bacon and mushrooms. Appreciate their afford to make this so tasty eventho it's quite oily but I somehow quite in love with the greasy taste of this! 

Spaghetti Chicken Bolognese | RM13.90

Normally, we only get minced chicken whenever you order spaghetti with bolognese sauce, but this is quite special as they served the fried chicken breast in this dish. Thumb up for their creativity, the portion ain't big as well but the chicken breast somehow will make you full. I read some food blogs, and they do comment the same that Wheeler's Coffee serve convincing spaghetti than other dishes, I strongly agree with this statement and would come back this cafe for their spaghetti but not others. 

Fish & Chips | RM15.90

I ordered this on the sake of trying new food than only spaghetti, but it's quite disappointing as I waited for more than 1 hour just to get this; all my friends finished their spaghetti but for me, I'm still waiting for my fish & chips like forever. Finally when it reached me, I expected that I can have heavenly dish but I didn't (on some aspect). The chips taste better than the fish as they topped some lime/lemon sauce on the fish, it taste quite sour to me, it's not up to my liking. Imaging when you have only 5 minutes to finish this super hot dish, I got no time to judge is it good or not as we were actually rushing to Gurney for movie after that. If they can served this earlier, I might have another thought on this, you say true or not? Anyway, it's only my personally opinion, don't judge them according to my words, as they might improve their serving after a month I visited them. 

Green tea Mille Crepe | RM10.90

Don't really remember the name as it was ordered by another friend, to celebrate PK's birthday, nah, a photo of me and him, weee... The cake is quite good, and I like their chocolate art on the plate, I saw other diners also have pretty chocolate arts when they order their cakes. We also finished it in 2-3 minutes due to lack of time. Hopefully Wheeler's Coffee can serve more varieties of food when I re-visit again. 

Location

67, Jalan Love Lane, 10200 Georgetwon, Penang. 

Business Hours

10am - 11pm (Weekdays); 10am - 12am (Weekends)

Contact Number

04-261 3570

Facebook

Wheeler's Coffee

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Work hard, play hard.